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I have a Macbook from just over a year ago, and it uses a Atheros wireless card, and it's the biggest pain to get running in Linux. Hopefully, with the Source released, it will be easier in the future to get the wireless working on this model of computer.

i have a similar issue. it usually works on mine (first gen intel macbook pro) and i am in fact using it now, but often it won't connect properly and i get the syslog fill with 'calibration' errors. hopefully this will help with that:)

i have a samsung nc1 netbook with a "AR242x 802.11abg" wireless chipset. currently i have to compile the drivers for it to get it to work... does this mean in subsequent releases of the kernel that it will just work?

This is interesting, as there are three Atheros drivers, all different. Madwifi uses the HAL. Ath5 is in the Linux trunk and doesn't (I think). Ath9 was developed by Atheros and probably uses the HAL but I didn't check. Sam was mostly interested in this because he wanted to work on mesh networking - it's good to see he's still involved.

The argument about BLOBs - binary loadable objects in the kernel - is not new, despite Bruce Byfield's recent report. I guess he just doesn't read the kernel list and other distro internal discussions, where this has been going on for a decade. And FSF did not "redefine" anything, they've always held that opinion.

It would be nice to draw a line at the hardware bus, with all above that Open Source and all below that whatever the hardware manufacturer likes because we don't deal with it. But BLOBs break that, because they are both above and below the bus. If we're going to handle the code, we can't really deny that there's a computer there running closed-source code. And given the degree to which wifi firmware sucks the world would be nicer if it was Free Software. Now, we just have to drive some sense into FCC, etc.

I have a new Acer Aspire One, with Atheros wireless, and have mostly got it running Debian properly - the biggest bugs I'm seeing may be in Debian Lenny rather than anything about Aspire One. A nice thing about this HAL release is that it makes Sam's virtual WAP software unquestionably Free - even from the BSD perspective. Did you ever want to connect to all of the WAPs you can reach at once, and be two or three different WAPs for others at the same time, all without carrying extra hardware? Sam's code can do that.

Being someone who speaks publicly about Open Source, I want to be seen using 100% Open Source. If you're going to talk the talk, you should walk the walk too.

I have an Aspire One as well. Mine is running FreeBSD, with wireless networking via the ath_hal kernel module.

I had to recompile the kernel using the latest 7.1 source snapshot to get the Atheros card working. The link/activity light doesn't work (no big deal, really!), but the wireless connection 'kill switch' on the front of the case works. I haven't tried running it as a WAP yet, but now I want to give it a try! The ath kernel modules in BSD have supported AP mode for some time now; if it doesn't w

This is interesting, as there are three Atheros drivers, all different. Madwifi uses the HAL. Ath5 is in the Linux trunk and doesn't (I think). Ath9 was developed by Atheros and probably uses the HAL but I didn't check.

I dont quite get the point of this then TBH, i mean it is nice to open source their code, but given that it has pretty much been reverse engineered already, isn't it a bit late!?

i mean it is nice to open source their code, but given that it has pretty much been reverse engineered already, isn't it a bit late!?

Especially since the kernel developers aren't going to let anything with a HAL into Linus' tree, entirely for architectural reasons. But it makes the best version of the driver at the moment fully free.

I dont quite get the point of this then TBH, i mean it is nice to open source their code, but given that it has pretty much been reverse engineered already, isn't it a bit late!?

Full feature supportSupport for more chip revisionsManufacturer supported testing and debugging

I'm speaking in general here, since I don't know if the reverse engineered version supported 11n, was stable, and offered high performance, but wireless is one area where I would much rather use a driver developed with full knowledge of th

If you can prove that it bleeds off the batteries more than Linux, we would like to see numbers, please. Linux isn't in charge once the machine is asleep. It would mean that some device is left in a power-drawing mode. I can't say for sure that Atheros has anything to do with this. Are you confusing it with the other HAL on Linux systems?

ermm, I think the problem here is that the OP is referring to two different things, "sleep" and "hibernate", but unless I am incorrectly remembering my ACPI (which is quite possible), Linux is in fact, if not "in charge once the machine is alseep", at least in charge of correctly putting all various pieces of the system into S3 sleep mode correctly. I know that for a long time my Thinkpad had powerdrain problems in S3 because of incorrectly suspended wifi.
For hibernate mode (assuming true write to disk and power off), then of course Linux isn't in charge.

It means that community developers will be able to write a driver that works as well in any OS as the Windows one, in every way.

It means all those Linux netbooks that were sold with cheap Aths, will soon have completely robust, standards-compliant wireless. And all those sniffing network-trickery programs that the haxors love, will Just Work(tm). And development can proceed with mesh networking on a much wider scope.

Right now, there is a larger team working on madwifi than just Sam, and the kernel team is working on ath5, so I don't think you're right this time.

There is another reason to expect this to result in a code improvement. The same netbooks that have the Atheros wifi often have Intel 3D as part of the chipset. Intel 3D is known to be horrible on Windows. Part of the problem is that desktop vendors don't want Intel 3D to be good, because they want to sell graphics cards. So, Intel has little incentive to make it better.

Except under X, that is. As far as I can tell, it works great under X. The X team at Intel is either not bothered with marketing hold-back; or because the source is public or satisfies a server market, they can justify a need for quality.

ATI will improve over time, and they will probably drive most of it themselves. Open Source will help them do that.

OS X uses something they developed specifically to avoid using X11:D There is a comment here on slashdot from a few years back about why, the guy who was involved in developing it had a LONG list of reasons.

By tearing i mean, move a window, watch a video, anything that moves across the screen tears. Basically if you move a window, it should remain solid and not move across the screen in segments etc.

It's probably failing to render the entire movement in a frame, then. I'll try to make that happen with mine. On Intel architecture, the thing that most often slows down that chipset is insufficient availability of MTRRs. That has halved the render speed on my desktop when it happens. Look in/proc/mtrr on Linux when X isn't started, if 8 are already used, there's a problem. This is actually happening on my Aspire One, and there seems to be redundant use of the MTRRs. I enabled the kernel MTRR cleaner, but

Off the top of my head, I think it was texture_from_pixmap. Most programs using 3d wouldn't work unless I set LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT, which reverts to indirect rendering. Compiz wouldn't work, nor would 3d games under wine (they work after setting the parameter, but painfully slow)

WTF! i mean WTF!!! how did this get modded insightful? Any Linux system that is properly configured can hibernate there is no need for any hardware support for hibernate to work, all dodge drivers can just be unloaded reloaded!

Now if you meant suspend to ram, well madwifi has never given my system any problems when suspending to ram but this does (in theory) mean that the developers can delve deeper into the code should there be any.

I doubt this will happen. Even mp3 decoders aren't free yet AFAIK and I'm not sure about DVD in terms of relative age, but Blu-ray is a much newer format, way in its infancy in fact. It was engineered specifically with DRM in mind, something that was never thought much of in the Linux community. And when you consider how much money went into making Blu-ray the dominant format over HD DVD, you'd think that they would try to make a little profit from the codecs now that they've won. Ah, how great it is to be

I really wish people would stop repeating this myth that the UK (and Europe) are free of software patents. There many, many software patents here - you just have to write the patent in a certain way that gets around the very weak restrictions. See http://eupat.ffii.org/patents/samples/index.en.html [ffii.org] for sample of these patents with summaries, from an anti-patent group.

To my knowledge the first _ever_ software patent was granted in the UK. See here [espacenet.com]. Note the last sentence in the abstract - The Specification is confined to a description of the programming method (also disclosed in Specification 1,039,142) which is applicable to any general-purpose digital computer. IANAL, but to me that sounds indeed like patent on the program / algorithm itself. According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], "UKIPO regularly grant patents to inventions that are partly or wholly implemented in software". Their e

Yes software patents has been granted all over EU, however, just because it has been granted, doesn't make it valid, it would be thrown out of court if it ever got to that point since as the GP said, they aren't valid (yet).

You left out one important fact, that enforceability of patents in the EU is up to each member nation to decide on. This little fact you forgot to mention means that software patents are null and void for the majority of the EU states.

The sole exceptions seem to be the 52rd state of the US, commonly referred to as the UK and to a lesser degree Germany.

Still, both German and UK courts are in a great flux regarding the entire software patent issue so the overall state of patents in the EU is that they are mor

Because those movies are shit? Your local library has a better selection of Hollywood titles than the site you reference. Most of these have never been in circulation, and for a very good reason.

Not to mention some of the movies on this site are in formats that are not "free and open" like Linux. AVI, DIVX, MPEG4? Hell, one I looked at was itself a 4 gig ISO file of MPEG2 video. How far must one dig through the site before finding the OGG format videos?

I noticed this on the dd-wrt.com website a couple of months back (dated 8.28.08)
We would like to announce the release of a new HAL for Atheros WLAN devices. The new HAL is the result of a collaboration between OpenWrt.org, DD-WRT and MakSat Technologies (P) Ltd. It is the first result of a common effort, and the present collaborators would like to share the product of this work. It is the intention to provide reliable and continued support for other projects using this new HAL for Atheros WLAN devices.
T

1. If you remove someone else's name and add your own, that's plagiarism, not theft.2. If you remove someone else's license, and the license doesn't give you permission to do that, that's copyright infringement, not theft.3. If you add a new license and list yourself as an author, and the old license didn't give you permission to do that, that's copyright infringement, not theft.4. If you don't enforce your copyright, that's nothing. Copyright gives you the right to sue, if you punt, that's your choice, stop moaning.

If English is your fourth language then I'm sure you won't mind being corrected from time to time. Using the word theft here to describe intellectual property is kind of a hot-button issue; there may not be a distinction to the common man, but there is a legal distinction which people take very seriously here. I'm not defending anyone here for coming down on you like that, but a poor choice of words here is likely to draw that kind of response.

Since Mr. Reyk hasn't filed suit, it's totally academic what the 'madwifi fuckers' did or did not do.

For someone who make such strong claims on being intellectually correct, this is an interesting position to take. So, in your world, as long as no suit is filed, any action taken is just "totally academic"?

If you have an axe to grind, take it up with them.

I don't really have an axe to grind. It's just two people in the madwifi group that did that "totally academic" but unethical thing. And have not apologized for it.

If, alternately, you have a thoughtful and reasoned criticism (and preferably some strong evidence for your allegations), please share it.

Umm... you did not manage to follow the original link that I had originally responded to? Would you like a signed and sealed piece of pape

OK, I read the entire thread. As I did so, I realized that it looked familar. I think that I read the whole thing a year ago in response to an earlier posting here. It struck me then as a tempest in a teapot. It still does.

Since Mr. Reyk hasn't filed suit, it's totally academic what the 'madwifi fuckers' did or did not do.

In other words, if a copyright owner chooses not to bring a lawsuit, no one else can bring one on his/her behalf. So yes, any discussion of what happened is academic, just like discussions about Lori Drew or Hans Reiser. You can discuss and argue all that you want, but nothing you s

OK, I read the entire thread. As I did so, I realized that it looked familar. I think that I read the whole thing a year ago in response to an earlier posting here. It struck me then as a tempest in a teapot. It still does.

Of course. It's not the end of the free world. However, in the Free Software world, or in the Open Source world, people who are supposed to give a shit about principles, apparently do not. And couldn't understand why other people feel pissed off.

And who the fuck's talking about legal standing? For some reason, you seem to live in the world where the only thing that matters is a lawsuit.

I wonder if this could be used to help port OpenWRT over to the atheros chipset. Currently the only routers that OpenWRT (and conversely by that DD-WRT) really work well on are the broadcom chipsets. Many routers that use the Atheros chipset have been written off as impossible to port to. Maybe they could be used if this proves any insight to how they operate.

When is the last time you've looked at this? The Nanostations [metrix.net], which are atheros based can run OpenWRT, DDWrt, etc. The big thing I see here is that with OSS HAL, maybe adhoc support on atheros will get better. Meraki, FON, and the ACCTON (openmesh.com) routers are all atheros too.

Atheros-based access points do work with OpenWRT. It works better than Broadcom-based devices. I replaced a Broadcom-based device with an Atheros-based one so it would work better, and run with the Linux 2.6 kernel. Only very recently has OpenWRT been able to run a 2.6 kernel with Broadcom-based wifi because the open drivers are getting up to scratch, and even then some things still dont work as well as Atheros wifi.The Atheros wifi on OpenWRT uses the madwifi driver, so this opening up of the HAL will stil

What if it is not just about running a completely free distro, but also about running a completely functional one? The WiFi hardware in my notebook fails to work for a mysterious reason and a certain transparency of hardware internals would not hurt when trying to make it work.

From the article apparaently he had "an agreement with Atheros" to "access to information about their devices". Does that mean he developed the HAL with little help from the company? (And apparaently he'll have no more access since the agreement is "concluded".)

It is nice to have an open source driver released, but it is NOT nice that an individual have to go jump through hoops and write it himself to make it happen.

It is nice to have an open source driver released, but it is NOT nice that an individual have to go jump through hoops and write it himself to make it happen.

That's how a lot of them happen. What's worse is when an individual, or team of individuals, work for years to make some proprietary code unnecessary, all of the time knowing that only when they are done will the manufacturer of the proprietary code place it in Open Source.

I was under the impression that the atheros HAL is not a binary blob in the sense the summary refers to, but a program executed on the host CPU [madwifi-project.org]. That makes this even better news than if it were a blob. It is debatable whether or not a system that needs to load a bunch of blobs onto its peripherals at startup is free or not(personally, I'm inclined to say it is, as long as the mechanisms for loading the firmware and interacting with the peripheral are open and the firmware is freely redistributable); but a system with a big binary lump running in kernel space definitely isn't.

It is very encouraging to see progress towards removing one of the most common causes of tainted kernels(probably second only to video card drivers); but it isn't really related to the blob question.

It was not firmware for downloading into the embedded processor of the wifi device. That came up because of the Bruce Byfield article recently covered here. There are BLOBs that execute on the main CPU, like nVidia's. I'm not sure if this HAL was ever one of those.

Can someone please explain to me what the advantage (presumably to the hw manufacturer) there is by having binary loadable code on the computer? Why not just store it on the hardware? Is the h/w somehow cheaper to manufacture because this is done? I really don't see how that could be.. the things have flash memory already.

You are confusing blobs with firmware. Firmware is software run by the hardware's processor. It used to be stored in ROM, but ROM is expensive, and if the host has a lot of RAM (which any computer does in comparison to a WiFi card) it's cheaper to just give some of the RAM to the device and let it use that instead. This also has the advantage that it's easier to fix bugs in the firmware - just download a new version, rather than replacing the chip (some old cards had the ROM in a socket for doing this, but it was quite rare for anyone to actually do it).

This is not firmware, however, it is a blob. The kernel module originally just took commands from a userspace driver and passed them over the bus, much like the DRI modules. Unlike the DRI driver, the HAL was binary-only. It was originally claimed that this was required by the FCC, since with the source code anyone could modify the driver to push the card out of regulatory compliance. It was a far from satisfactory solution, however, since it meant that no one could fix the blob, and it was limited to x86-only.

There is also the advantage of having less wireless card warranty replacements due to failed firmware upgrades. I imagine this is a source of frustration for both consumer and manufacturer. Kudos to Atheros for doing this... may I point out that Ralink Technology has been doing this for a number of years now? I have found the Atheros and Ralink chipsets to be equally of good quality. Finally, it's time for Intel to follow suit. They have no competitive edge by keeping their binary blobs. Their stuff

I just wanted to say thanks for creating and supporting such a great product. I've been buying and recommending Atheros based wifi cards for years (for both Windows and Linux applications) specifically because of your fantastic support of open systems. They are rock solid and fast.

And please don't let any money grubbing developer who only cares about money do any more "open source" work for you in the future! Sam stood up at Usenix and told the OpenBSD guys to stop their efforts to reverse-engineer HAL or else there would be no open source support at all. Now they've succeeded and not only is there open source support for Atheros, there's more support for it because now Sam's forced to open source HAL in order to keep the money stream coming in from a formerly proprietary monopoly si

Sam deserves a huge round of applause for all the work he has put in to wireless drivers and support. The long standing criticism of his work, that it was released as a BLOB, was Atheros' choice, not his. Sam stopped direct involvement in Linux drivers a while back, but continued to release BLOBs for many platforms. His release of the HAL source was accompanied by the announcement that his HAL was no longer the reference. Thanks a Whole Lot, Sam, you sure took a lot of grief that wasn't rightfully yours

As a user I found open source to be a lot more hassle free than closed source. Usually it open source is supported better and longer. I can download everything from Debian mirrors. When I used Nvidia I always had to do some additional steps.

If your are like me and you don't want to buy another card because you are broke and you like to distro hop, then this is a great thing!
I do get tired of re-installing M/A and the like just to try it out.